It is common for communications network operators to provide WiFi access to the internet to their customers, such that users of smartphones, tablets and similar devices can access the internet. Currently, the applicant operates a WiFi network which has 4 million hotspots in the UK and 2 million more elsewhere in the world. A number of these hotspots are provided by domestic and commercial broadband wireless routers which advertise both a private SSID connected to the customers home network and a public SSID which is connected via a WiFi core network to the internet. A user may connect to a public SSID at a variety of premium sites e.g. hotels, cafes etc. as well as to the public SSID of a home or business router.
Unfortunately smartphones and tablets such as, for example iOS or Android devices, have an SSID prioritisation algorithm which prefers the last successfully connected SSID. This means that a user who connects to a public SSID when out of their home will by default automatically connect to the public side of their own access point when they return home. This is undesirable since it means they cannot access devices which are connected to their private network e.g. a Network Attached Storage device, or media players. It is also undesirable since it means that internet traffic that should be going straight to the internet via the broadband access network is instead being routed to the WiFi core network and thereby introducing additional costs to the network operator and potentially reduced throughput and thus decreased user experience.
Some third party connection manager applications, including for example the applicant's WiFi Android application, attempt to override the default behaviour of the devices and apply a private vs. public prioritisation programmatically on the device. This has proven to be difficult since many devices do not provide the appropriate APIs and even for those devices that do provide the necessary API access then there is a race condition between the underlying OS applying one prioritisation policy and the third party connection manager attempting to apply a different policy. In many cases the underlying OS wins this race and the incorrect prioritisation is applied.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,535,880 discloses a wireless access point which determines a unique identifier, such as a MAC address or an OUI (Organisational unique identifier) of a mobile terminal and uses that unique identifier to determine an access policy which controls the network connectivity and/or services which the mobile terminal is able to access.
According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a wireless access point comprising: a wireless network interface, a private device list and a connection to one or more communication networks; the wireless access point being configured, in use, to i) transmit a first identity and a second identity over the wireless network interface; ii) store a unique identifier of a mobile terminal in the private device list in response to the mobile terminal making a connection to the wireless access point via the first identity; iii) subsequently prevent a mobile terminal for which an associated unique identifier is stored in the private device list from connecting to the wireless access point via the second identity.
The wireless access point may be configured to store the media access control (MAC) address of the mobile terminal in the private device list in response to the mobile terminal making a connection to the wireless access point via the first identity. The first identity may comprise a private basic service set. The second identity may comprise a public basic service set.
According to a second aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of operating a wireless access point, the method comprising the steps of: a) transmitting a first identity and a second identity via a wireless network interface; b) storing a unique identifier of a mobile terminal in the private device list in response to the mobile terminal making a connection to the wireless access point via the first identity; and c) subsequently preventing a mobile terminal for which an associated unique identifier is stored in the private device list from connecting to the wireless access point via the second identity.
According to a third aspect of the present invention there is provided a tangible data carrier for use in a computing device, the data carrier comprising computer executable code which, in use, performs a method as described above.